No, reaching a zenith is not what jumping the shark is at all. It's when someone does something to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're headed downhill.
Thomas could win another Conn Smythe this year. If he has a bad playoffs this year and then lets in a Toska-goal in the first round next year, people will give up on him, and that would be considered a shark-jumping.
People are really forgetting when the Toska-goal happened, or at least re-writing the narrative around it. He won that game 3-1 and the Hockey News, rightly or wrongly, named him the 7th best goalie in the league after the season ended. The Lydman goal I posted earlier is a much better example for him. Some thought he'd be back on track after his surgery in the summer of 2009, but after being absolutely terrible to start the 09-10 season, the book on him being a decent goaltender at any pro level was closed.
I'm confused, isn't a jump the shark moment where a player is at their zenith and you foresee them going down because there's nothing more they could possibly accomplish or they overachieved?
No, that's like winning an Emmy for Best Television Series. You can always win another one (Emmy or Hart Trophy). The Jumping the Shark moment is when people realize that you've sunk so low since your zenith, you'll never again be as good as you once were.
For Ovechkin it may well be either the 7-3 Olympic game or the 2010 playoffs.
Did anyone really think Ovechkin was finished after he scored 10 points in 7 games in the 2010 playoffs, following his third straight Lindsay trophy? I realize he got a lot of criticism for the final two games of the series, but I don't think anyone thought he was finished as an elite player at the time.
Lafleur's knee injury in the 1980 playoffs. Was never the same after that.
He may have lost a step, but he was still very effective in the 81 Canada Cup and scored at more than a ppg pace in the 81-82 season despite injuries. I think he lost some of his mystique after the Krutov goal in final game of the 81 CC. A lot of people disliked him after this even though the goal meant very little in an 8-1 loss. Lafleur, who had never been viewed as a selfish player, was all of a sudden selfish. Every coach he had after this game either benched him, reduced his ice time or challenged him. The mystique was gone.
Actually no, I have no idea what it means. The only TV reference I can think of is when the Fonz jumped a shark on water skis. Is that what you mean?
Well that was the original inspiration for the term. It originated in an late 90's website (jumptheshark.com) which identified/discussed the moment when various TV shows "Jumped the Shark" - when they ran out of ideas, stopped being interesting/relevant, or just generally began to suck. The site was bought out by TV Guide - and proceeded to Jump the Shark
Well that was the original inspiration for the term. It originated in an late 90's website (jumptheshark.com) which identified/discussed the moment when various TV shows "Jumped the Shark" - when they ran out of ideas, stopped being interesting/relevant, or just generally began to suck. The site was bought out by TV Guide - and proceeded to Jump the Shark
No, reaching a zenith is not what jumping the shark is at all. It's when someone does something to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're headed downhill.
Thomas could win another Conn Smythe this year. If he has a bad playoffs this year and then lets in a Toska-goal in the first round next year, people will give up on him, and that would be considered a shark-jumping.
People are really forgetting when the Toska-goal happened, or at least re-writing the narrative around it. He won that game 3-1 and the Hockey News, rightly or wrongly, named him the 7th best goalie in the league after the season ended. The Lydman goal I posted earlier is a much better example for him. Some thought he'd be back on track after his surgery in the summer of 2009, but after being absolutely terrible to start the 09-10 season, the book on him being a decent goaltender at any pro level was closed.
I actually thought Toskala jumped the shark in the SJ-Edm series in 2006. After going up 3-1, San Jose lost that series and Edmonton picked Toskala apart, shooting high glove hand.
In my mind, at that point he went from, 'future starting goalie' to, 'run-of-the-mill goalie who had a hot streak'. I was really surprised San Jose got what they did from him.
He may have lost a step, but he was still very effective in the 81 Canada Cup and scored at more than a ppg pace in the 81-82 season despite injuries. I think he lost some of his mystique after the Krutov goal in final game of the 81 CC. A lot of people disliked him after this even though the goal meant very little in an 8-1 loss. Lafleur, who had never been viewed as a selfish player, was all of a sudden selfish. Every coach he had after this game either benched him, reduced his ice time or challenged him. The mystique was gone.
Well, in the strictest sense, 'jumping the shark' means the START of decline. The moment when you realize, 'okay, the best is over' but there may still be some good moments ahead and you don't yet know how bad the decline will be.
So in that sense, I think the knee injury fits well, IMO.
I actually thought Toskala jumped the shark in the SJ-Edm series in 2006. After going up 3-1, San Jose lost that series and Edmonton picked Toskala apart, shooting high glove hand.
In my mind, at that point he went from, 'future starting goalie' to, 'run-of-the-mill goalie who had a hot streak'. I was really surprised San Jose got what they did from him.
That makes sense on it's own, but Toskala was not a "run of the mill goalie" in his last two seasons. Most of his 2009-10 stats were further away from average than the best goaltenders in the league's were.
Toskala's play between 2006-07 and the beginning of 2008-09 could be called "run-of-the-mill"*, but after that it was like he was reliving game 5 against Edmonton every single night.
*Could, but many would say Toskala frequently stole games for a dysfunctional Leafs team in 2007-08. His numbers don't really suggest he was that great, but that's still worlds away from the gongshow who put up 1980s sv% in his last 2 years.
Does Pilon's hit on Kevin Stevens count? It more or less came unravelled for him after that...really the Penguins in general too...could have been a 3rd straight Cup there, dynasty or mini-dynasty (who knows what a healthy Stevens can do for the Pens if he sticks around - 1996 comes to mind)...but a lot of wind seemed to come out of their sails after power forward extraordinaire Kevin Stevens went down.
He may have lost a step, but he was still very effective in the 81 Canada Cup and scored at more than a ppg pace in the 81-82 season despite injuries. I think he lost some of his mystique after the Krutov goal in final game of the 81 CC. A lot of people disliked him after this even though the goal meant very little in an 8-1 loss. Lafleur, who had never been viewed as a selfish player, was all of a sudden selfish. Every coach he had after this game either benched him, reduced his ice time or challenged him. The mystique was gone.
Yeah that just really looked bad. Just an example of everything going wrong for a team in that game. The thing is, Lafleur was a winner at that time and took the bull by the horns many times in his career to prove it and then he gets OUT of the way of a shot which he could have blocked while Canada was on the powerplay. Liut didn't look strong on the goal either, but Lafleur may have looked worse than Gonchar in 2010 on that one.
Until then, the Rangers were THE team in New York compared to the young, struggling Islanders.
But the Isles upset the Blueshirts in their best-of-three preliminary round (winning game 3 on a VERY early overtime goal) and that really changed things.
The Rangers of the late 60s and early 70s of Emile Francis 'jump the shark' moment was Parise's series-winning OT goal. The team of Gilbert, Park, Giacomin, Ratelle, Francis, etc. had reached their ropes' end.
Both teams were tied with 83 points when they met in that series.
The following year, the Rangers had just 29 wins and fell to 69 points, a 14-point decline.
Meanwhile, the Islanders won 42 games and 101 points in 1975-76.
But things changed on the ice in 1975-76 as there were repercussions- the Rangers made the Park/Ratelle for Esposito trade, while rookie Bryan Trottier joined up with Norris Trophy winner Potvin
